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Soup

Ice Bouillon

A cold pea soup made with peas, onion, herbs, and brown stock, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ice Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Drain and mash the peas, reserving ½ cup of whole peas.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the mashed peas, water, onion, bay leaf, parsley, mace, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer gently for 30 minutes, then mash thoroughly.

Make the bouillon

  1. Add the hot brown stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Thicken with butter and flour, cooking for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the reserved whole peas.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body and vegetable flavour, and thicken the bouillon when mashed.
Brown stock
Supplies the main savoury, meaty base of the bouillon.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the thickened liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks with the butter.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and flour, cooking for 10 minutes. Flour must be cooked long enough with the butter and liquid to lose its raw taste and to thicken evenly. Adding it lumpy or undercooking it leaves a pasty texture and a floury flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, onion, parsley, sugar, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, onion, parsley, sugar, pepper, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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